RULES FOR THE 2008 HOLIDAY PRESENT HUNT:
Each clue below refers to a chess game in our database, and these games contain
a banner that you can click on to claim a present. Be the first to find the game and
click the banner to claim your prize. We will be adding more clues to this page
at random intervals until December 25th, 2008. See our Official Rules to view the prizes
and for other important information.

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Visit our page to sign-up.

The 2008 Chessgames Holiday Present Hunt is over.
Congratulations to all the winners!

The symbol is the logo for the Russian Airline Aeroflot. The roman numerals do not imply 177 but rather "C77", the ECO code for the Morphy Defense of the Ruy Lopez. This is one of several games from the Aeroflot Open featuring that opening.

The "x" is the chess symbol for "capture", and this game contains 15 consecutive captures starting with move 20.Qxe8. (If you are curious, the record is 17 consecutive captures in Rudd-Roberson, 2006.)

Biblical references: Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, and Luke 5:37 all refer to "new wine in old bottles", for example Luke 5:37 reads, "And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish." And in Bobby Fischer's famous book My 60 Memorable Games this game is dubbed "Old Wine in a New Bottle."

The illustration depicts the letter e cut in half. If you take one half of e (the base of natural logarithms ≈ 2.718281828459) you get approximately 1.359141. This is game number 1359141 in our database.

ONE PAWN FOR THE EXCHANGEAs a rule, this is a win for the rook, but the practical difficulties are many. Again the central ideas are to gain an entry with the King or Rook and set up an unbalanced Pawn position. The defense must rely chiefly on blockade possibilities. An important point to remember is that with all the pawns on one side the game is drawn.

The solutions to the mini-clues are: 1. Sun (Sun Ra was a jazz performer) 2. jai (Jai alai is a game played on a court with a ball and wicker racket) and 3. kin (a quote from Hamlet). Put them together to get Sunjaikin.

The graphic is the logo for the record label, "Swan Song Records", which was launched by Led Zeppelin in 1974. Idiomatically, a "swan song" is a shining achievement at the end of one's career. For Garry Kasparov that would be his last professional tournament, Linares 2005. Kasparov tied for first with Veselin Topalov, who went on to become world champion. This game is one of Kasparov's shining brilliancies from that tournament.

The letters are elements in the periodic table. H=Hydrogen (atomic number 1). Y=Yttrium (atomic number 39). F=Fluorine (atomic number 9). I=Iodine (atomic number 53). N=Nitrogen (atomic number 7). String the numbers together to get the game ID number, 1399537.

The solutions of the mini-clues are: Capes, hokum, entwine, sirens, stove, gaffe, Apple, menorah, etching, and secret. The first letters of each word spells "chessgames", which is intended to help you confirm your answers. The solution is found in the 4th column, which reads "Euwe v Flohr".

The game was played in 2003, there are 8 planets in the solar system (N.B., Pluto was demoted in 2006), and the atomic number of thallium (nicknamed "The Poisoner's Poison") is 81. And 2003 x 8 x 81 = 1297944, which is the game ID number.

Upcoming Game of the Day for December 24, 2008. HINT #1: With creativity, this clue is solvable. HINT #2: The title of the game is a pun. HINT #3: To make the pun work, we used diminutive forms of the names. (e.g. Robert -> Bob)

The solutions to the mini-clues are: lining, ambo, candles, aggest, Eve, Smyslov, and azoth. The circled letters spell "longest". While this is not the longest game in the database, for many years it was the longest recorded game played under normal tournament conditions.

Not all clues will narrow the field down to a single game; some clues may refer
to more than one possible game. Some clues are very hard exactly because they are
very vague. For clues like these, you'll simply have to search through the possible games and hope
that you get lucky.

Some clues are anagrams. For example, if a clue was "Apply Humor 1850" then you might
want to look at Paul Morphy games from 1850. ("Apply Humor" is an anagram of "Paul Morphy".)

Some clues are puns, similar to what you might find on our Game of the Day.
The Game of the Day Archive might come in handy, even though it only goes
back one year.

For some clues, a knowledge of chess players and chess history is helpful--but there are also
references to literature, language, pop culture, mathematics, and the arts.

Many clues are intentionally misleading, in the spirit of crossword puzzles.

Sometimes a clue will be very hard, and then a subsequent clue will make a reference
designed to act as a hint for the earlier very hard clue. So if everybody is stuck on a real
stumper, pay careful attention to the new clues being released.

We promise that we will never insert hints into the HTML of the pages. This includes
the filenames and "alt text" that we choose for our graphics. Don't bother investigating
those details, because we assure you that it will never help.

Don't ask the chessgames administrators for any clarification of the meanings of clues.
Some of them are designed to be confusing and ambiguous; we will refuse to clarify their
meaning. However, we sometimes offer additional hints to clues which go unsolved for a
long period of time.

To give everybody a fair chance, there is a limit of five (5) prizes per member. If you
are skilled enough to win 5 prizes you'll have to stop playing until next year.

If you are trying to solve a clue for which the solution is a seven-digit game ID number,
be aware that the valid range of game ID's goes from 1,000,000 to (approx.) 1,500,000. So you don't
have to examine all 10 million numbers, "only" half a million.

It is possible to design software that downloads thousands of games in bulk
to scan the HTML pages for prize graphics. This is regarded as cheating. We have
measures in place designed to detect and prevent this. Anybody caught using these methods
will be disqualified, and the prizes will not be awarded but instead returned to the
prize pool.

Chessgames.com will be the most important site to use for all clues, but being
skilled with Google.com can also help a lot. Some of the clues will involve anagrams,
for which the Internet Anagram Server is an indispensable resource. For
questions of history, art, mathematics, or a number of other subjects that our clues reference, Wikipedia will surely come in handy. Having a good
dictionary will also be an asset.

Since many clues refer to player names, our Player Directory
will be a valuable tool. When searching for players by name, it's probably best to use the
Advanced Search on the homepage.

This contest would not exist were it not for the generous contributions of our sponsors. Whether or not
you win, you should take a minute to visit their websites and see the fine publications and merchandise
they have to offer.

These hints are not inclusive; some types of clues might not be described herein. You're
on your own--good luck!